Maybe I would board some bling dread for few days, but then I know I would be like: F*ck it, there is nothing to achieve here.

Let's just assume you had been able to fly your Stealth Bomber since day one. Would you still be here?

I wouldn't come to EVE in the first place. It should be obvious to you after reading my post.

That's insanity, but fair enough - question answered.

I'm not sure "differ" really covers it. The part of the game you enjoy, the deal-breaker in fact, is that EVE prevents you from doing the things you want for ever increasing periods of time.

I'm trying to apply this mentality to any other game, and this is what comes out:

"People like that chess game, but I don't get it. They just give you all the pieces right up front. Where's the strategy? Where's the payoff for a long term commitment to Bishops? Not the game for me."

I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept a dedicated EVE-chess playerbase that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, all perfectly happy knowing that it will take decades of waiting before they'll be allowed to play a game with all 16 pieces.

I'm not sure "differ" really covers it. The part of the game you enjoy, the deal-breaker in fact, is that EVE prevents you from doing the things you want for ever increasing periods of time.

I'm trying to apply this mentality to any other game, and this is what comes out:

"People like that chess game, but I don't get it. They just give you all the pieces right up front. Where's the strategy? Where's the payoff for a long term commitment to Bishops? Not the game for me."

I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept a dedicated EVE-chess playerbase that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, all perfectly happy knowing that it will take decades of waiting before they'll be allowed to play a game with all 16 pieces.

Is it really that successful?

Getting friends in the game, with sustain, is better than gameplay. "It is better to give than to receive." Maybe the (frankly, unfounded) negatives of this discussion could benefit from that idea. There can always be more gameplay with more subs and options and initiative and value. There can't always be less with fewer.

In the same way you bemoan eve's skills by saying chess gives you all the pieces up front one could complain about chess for having different pieces where checkers does not.

False equivalence. If checkers were called out for having all of the same pieces, it would be for shallowness. If chess' pieces were limited, the game would be less deep. ..There's a pattern.

Eve has never been without the skill system, as such any slumps in growth can't be directly attributed to that.

"If there's not enough information, there's plenty of information"? How ludicrous.

In all actuality the games periods of greatest growth should never have happened if the skill system was the issue as you suggest.

Even nothingness has value.

[False equivalence. If checkers were called out for having all of the same pieces, it would be for shallowness. If chess' pieces were limited, the game would be less deep. ..There's a pattern.No, this is not a false equivalence, rather, this is you using contrived, self serving, false logic. There is no intrinsic balance point between all games that even justifies comparisons like these, thus no one comparison is more valid than another, and thus no "pattern", which negates the validity of the objection posed. Even then, if we did accept this line of thinking and chess becomes the model by which gaming is measured the answer becomes obvious: everyone should quit eve and checkers and go play chess.

"If there's not enough information, there's plenty of information"? How ludicrous.Good thing that's not what I stated. I stated we didn't have the information to make the conclusion you are stating is a fact. I didn't offer alternative conclusions save the also known fact that the game has seen growth under the same conditions you claim are causing it to stagnate. While not definitive proof, it's a contradicting correlation which has lasted longer than the association you're constructing out of a vacuum.

Even nothingness has value.ok.

That's insanity, but fair enough - question answered.

I'm not sure "differ" really covers it. The part of the game you enjoy, the deal-breaker in fact, is that EVE prevents you from doing the things you want for ever increasing periods of time.

I'm trying to apply this mentality to any other game, and this is what comes out:

"People like that chess game, but I don't get it. They just give you all the pieces right up front. Where's the strategy? Where's the payoff for a long term commitment to Bishops? Not the game for me."

I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept a dedicated EVE-chess playerbase that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, all perfectly happy knowing that it will take decades of waiting before they'll be allowed to play a game with all 16 pieces.

I come from a background of playing old pen and paper RPG's as a kid, the whole creating and growing the character is as much part of the game to me as the market place, the industry drivers, the destruction of assets and the interaction between players.

I've got my own history of high school D&D as well. And the person who thought "growing their character" was getting a new combat feat was the min-maxer that nobody wanted to play with.

Large Projectile Turret V isn't character growth. It's mindless busywork. It's an arbitrary time-sink. It's Progress Quest.

I've got my own history of high school D&D as well. And the person who thought "growing their character" was getting a new combat feat was the min-maxer that nobody wanted to play with.

Large Projectile Turret V isn't character growth. It's mindless busywork. It's an arbitrary time-sink. It's Progress Quest.

SP progression and training time encourages creativity and emergent gameplay.

SP progression and training time encourages creativity and emergent gameplay.

If I was given the ability to fly a battleship/carrier/dred from day one, I would never have learned what I did by solo roaming through dangerous space in my nice little rifter and probe.

No, it encourages Skillqueue Offline.

If you want to encourage creative gameplay solutions through asymmetrical power balances, you do it with a standardized power limit. You can see this type of gameplay in ship combat - each hull will have its strengths, weaknesses and specializations. With SP however, the motivation is skewed. For most activities the path of least resistance is to simply wait until your SP is high enough to compete. And for very mechanical ones like manufacturing, there isn't really any choice. Get your materials efficiency to max, or be priced out of the market.

I do find a special sort of irony in being told over and over I've got no imagination or creativity, but then being told that if it wasn't for the game stopping people from doing what they wanted, they never would have tried something different.

The key in what you said is "the path of least resistance." EVE has never in its history been something that encourages the path of least resistance. It's designed to be hard.

Fallacy: appeal on tradition.

It's designed to be challenging. It's designed to not coddle anyone.

..As if setting a skill queue is challenging or promoting of interesting play.

Whatever game you are thinking about, it isn't EVE. It is by design not something that holds your hand.

Fallacy: no true Scotsman

Fallacy: appeal on tradition.
Fallacy: no true Scotsman

Eve is not a game for the faint hearted. It's a game that will chew you up and spit you out in the blink of an eye if you even think about letting your guard down or becoming complacent.

While every other MMO starts off with an intro that tells you you're going to be the savior of the realm, holds your hand, protects you, nurtures your development and ultimately guides you to your destiny as a hero along with several other million players who've had the exact same experience, EVE assaults you from the second you begin to play after you create a character, spitting you out into a universe that under the surface, is so complex that it's enough to make your head explode.

The entire design is based around being harsh, vicious, relentless, hostile and cold. It's about action and reaction, and the story that unfolds as you experience these two things.

True, we're working hard to lower the bar of entry so that more players can enjoy EVE and can get into the game. Our NPE (New Player Experience) is challenging, and we're trying to improve it to better prepare rookies for what lies out there, but when you start to play eve, you'll always start out as the little fish in the big pond.

The only way to grow is to voraciously consume what's around you, and its your choice whether that happens to be New Eden's abundant natural resources, or the other people who're also fighting their way to the top.

EVE is a playing experience like no other, where every action or reaction resonates through a single universe and is felt by players from all corners of the word. There are no shards here, no mirror universes, no instances and very few rules. If you stumble across something valuable, then chances are someone else already knows where you are, or is working their way toward you and you better be prepared to fight for what you've discovered.

EVE will test you from the outset, from the very second you undock and glimpse the stars, and will take pleasure from sorting those who can survive from those who'd rather curl up and perish.

EVE will let you fight until you collapse, then let you struggle to your feet, exhausted from the effort. Then when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel it'll kick you flat on your ass in the mud again and ask you why you deserve to be standing. It'll test you against every other individual playing at some point or another, and it'll ask for answers.

Give it an answer and maybe it'll let you up again, long enough to gather your thoughts. After a few more steps you're on the ground again and it's asking more questions.

EVE is designed to be harsh, it's designed to be challenging, and it's designed to be so deep and complex that it should fascinate and terrify you at the same time.

Corporation, Alliances and coalitions of tens of thousands have risen and fallen on these basic principles, and every one of those thousands of people has their own unique story to tell about how it affected them and what they experienced.

That's the beauty of EVE. Action and reaction. Emergence.

Welcome to the most frightening virtual playground you'll ever experience.

Come on, thread. Discussion is really simple.

...Having to be creative with limited resources is absolutely challenging....

The only way to grow is to voraciously consume what's around you, and its your choice whether that happens to be New Eden's abundant natural resources, or the other people who're also fighting their way to the top.

Beyond that quote being an Appeal to Authority (fallacy), here's some constructive criticism:

The game and its options can't be voraciously consumed if they're locked.

This stuff already happens. There's just an arbitrarily defined X month wait between you and being able to get into Industry.

The fact you built a skill plan in EveMon six months ago isn't the heart and soul of EVE. You don't have to settle for being your SP total, or your mastery certificates. Build your character around what you do in the game, not what your skills tell you your character is and isn't allowed to do.

Did you just call what CCP's own staff said was the intended direction and spirit for the game they made a fallacy?

Uhhhmmm no, it does not happen now. As I pointed out, without skills, or simply setting them all to 5 I'd have a third afktar out in space while ratting boosting my ratting income by 33%. As it stands now I have to decide to train that alt to do it or something else.

Additionally with all skills set to 5, I'd have 2 more characters who could do invention/manufacturing instead of 4, so a 50% increase there.

If I decided to get into station trading I'd have 7 perfect traders.

Considering that the last 2 activities do not require my alts to all be logged on concurrently, I could use them all.

So, this could be very unbalancing for the in-game economy. To deny this indicates you are being deliberately obtuse.

Did you just call what CCP's own staff said was the intended direction and spirit for the game they made a fallacy?

Yeah, imma take a long term CCP dev's opinion over yours any day champ.

It's arguable that bounties are so lucrative, because skilling characters is so limiting. With fewer limitations on profession options, other niches open.

As for market production, saying that more is somehow inherently negative is a very shallow examination. Those materials have to come from somewhere, and those products have to go somewhere. If the trend is you making 15 alts to enjoy an unrestricted sandbox experience, that's more content. That whole trend is more undocked ships, and the obvious benefit of an unrestricted sandbox is great advertising.

Except, what I'm posting is nothing about opinions, but it's also from CCP.. and scientific research.

For simplicity: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6073567#post6073567

Except, what I'm posting is nothing about opinions, but it's also from CCP.. and scientific research.

For simplicity: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6073567#post6073567